Career Tracks in Finance

Corporate Finance

In corporate finance, graduates work for a company to fund its projects, to analyze projects, to make financial plans, and to manage working capital. Their main goal is to create value for a company. Activities typically include designing and implementing financial policies, evaluating and financing projects, managing cash resources, and interfacing with the financial community and investors. Key job titles include treasurer, cash manager, controller, financial analyst, budget analyst, credit manager.

Asset Management

Asset managers (or money managers) manage stocks, bonds, and/or derivatives for their clients. Typically they work for mutual funds, hedge funds, pension funds, endowment funds, etc. Asset managers have their own unique styles of managing assets, but they typically use sophisticated quantitative techniques. There are many different types of assets available in the market including corporate bonds, municipal bonds, asset-backed securities, stocks, preferred stocks, options, and futures. Typical job areas in asset management include portfolio management, sales, security analysis and research.

Commercial Banking

Commercial banking provides banking services to individuals, small businesses and large organizations. The commercial banking sector employs more people than any other financial services sector. In fact there are a wide variety of opportunities open to finance graduates, including credit appraisal, mortgage services, account management, trust services, leasing, credit card banking, loan issuance, operational handling, and international finance and trade credit.

Investment Banking

Investment banking helps companies and governments issue securities by forming a syndicate or network of investors. The leading investment banks include firms such as Merrill Lynch, Smith Barney, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley. There are many other regional investment banks. Typically, investment banking includes facilitation of mergers and acquisitions, seasoned equity offering, project financing, structured financing, and derivatives, equity and fixed income research, among others.

Financial Planning

Financial planners help people manage their money for both the short and long term. Specifically, they help their clients plan their financial futures in the area of investment, income tax, estate tax, retirement, children’s college education, and insurance in particular. Some financial planners work independently as a proprietor or partner, but many work for big corporations like Merrill Lynch, Smith Barney, American Express, and so on. Increasingly, it pays to obtain the Certified Financial Planner (CFP) designation.

Insurance

Careers in insurance involve helping individuals and business manage risk to anticipate potential risk problems and protect themselves from incurring catastrophic losses. Typically, insurance companies deal with annuities for their clients. Insurance professionals work in a variety of areas in insurance, including as an underwriter, a sales representative, an asset manager, a customer service representative or an actuary.

Real Estate

Real estate fields include title insurance, construction, property management, real estate appraisals, brokerage and leasing, and real estate development. Typically, real estate is collateral for mortgages and a large amount of financial assets. Recently, various securities have been developed in the area of real estate. Mortgage-backed securities, REIT’s ("real estate investment trusts"), and mutual funds specialized in real estate are good examples.